For the last three inaugurations I have made it a point to not watch, hear or read anything about these ridiculous events. Understand that I am not against the actual inaugural ceremony as I believe that is one of the defining elements of our kind of democracy. What I object to is the outrageous out of control spending on the parties, balls, and fluff that now seems to accompany these ceremonies. The security cost for tomorrow's inauguration will be astronomical according to today's news stories. Guess who's tax dollars will be used to pay the bill? Including mine and I didn't vote for him. What happened to the liberal outrage sparked in 2005 over Bush's second inaugural celebration? (I personally disagreed with that overpriced party as well). I have my doubts about Mr. Obama and his promises.

However, if he had begun his era of CHANGE by having a simple, classy inaugural rather than outdoing all previous ones, I would have been forced to sit up and take notice. Right now all I see is more of the same old, same old....